Year 1 - spelling tests.... ds struggling - is this common?

[ipanemagirl]

My ds 6 has been struggling with his weekly spelling tests - is this common?
He and one other boy get two or less right every week. The rest of the class cope ok apparently. The special ed needs group don't do the tests at all.
My ds is verbally very articulate and also his reading seems ok, slowly getting on.
Can it be that spelling from memory will just come naturally with time, it doesn't necessarily indicate a educational difficulty does it?

How does he get them wrong? In year one at our school they tend not to worry if they are wrong as long as they are phonetically plausible - is he spelling the words as they sound to him or is it more random than that? DD2 did this last year (year one) and I was a bit concerned but now she is in year two she has somehow got the hang of spelling correctly.

Ds gets quite a lot marked wrong as he gets his letters the wrong way round. He is also a terror for the 'phonetically plausible' rather than the correct spelling. His spelling is shocking really. Have you had a preant's evening?Did it get mentioned?

I wouldn't worry too much. My 2 boys have spent Y1 in different schools (we moved) and neither school even did/does spelling tests in Y1. Rote memorisation of words for tests doesn't always mean that the children use the words correctly later. I would just concentrate on general reading and writing, unless the teacher is particularly concerned.

thnx for encouragement. He spells bizarrely! For a list of words with 'ch' in them he'll write: wot, dot mot, mod, wot, wox, etc etc just unrelated gibberish!
Any way we've done a lot of fun work on this week's words and are only aiming at 2 or 3 out of 10 to keep it do-able. fingers crossed.
I wish there was a way of using his verbal skills school - he's very confident and clear verbally. But that doesn't get ofsteded so I guess we can forget that opportunity for him to shine!

ds2 (yr1) was stuggling with his spellings and I found using this site lookcover helped him. I enter his spellings and he practices on his own. I can't spell and didn't do spellings at school which I regret.

thanks LizP! I think these spellings are harder than he's up to at the moment but I'll bookmark it for when he's moved on a bit.

It it will gelp I get my Ds who is in year 2 to write the wspeelings out a few times before I test him. I do this with all spellings and he seems to be doing ok. He has about 8 spellings a week and I get him to write them nearly every day, so by the time he has a test they have sunk in.

Very common. It will come.

ipanemagirl you can type your own list into that site for him to do.

oh thanks!
techno-luddite.......
Since big chat at parents' evening, teacher is giving him a lot more encouragement and he even got 4 or 5 right this week.
We practised in a much more fun way this time - I think that's the key with him. Just writing it out repeatedly he finds so dull. I think the teacher has also been stuck by my telling her that my son sees himself as unsuccessful - I think it's sharpened her focus and giving him more positive feedback!

also thanks scummymummy and crocky and all for encouragement.
I sometimes think that ds's only problem is his neurotic mother!